


Freeze, Starve, and Break Stuff

by Abnormal_Cleric



Series: His Favorite [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Love, Destructive Tendancies, Family, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mild Language, Minor Violence, Protective Donatello (TMNT), Raphael (TMNT) Is a Mess, Raphael (TMNT) Needs a Hug, Self-Esteem Issues, Tension, Turtles Are Cold-Blooded, anger issues, undiagnosed mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abnormal_Cleric/pseuds/Abnormal_Cleric
Summary: Ever since he was old enough to throw a punch, Raphael had needed to learn who he shouldn't fight. For as long as he can remember, he's been reckless and self-destructive. His anger would get the better of him sooner or later, but no one in his family knew why.He did. He knew exactly why he had to get into fights he couldn't win and deal with the consequences alone. He just couldn't put it into words.Maybe Donatello was smart enough to understand.
Relationships: Donatello & Raphael (TMNT)
Series: His Favorite [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053542
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Freeze, Starve, and Break Stuff

It had been three hours since Donatello had seen Raphael and, although he trusted all of his brothers infinitely, he also knew when one of them had been gone for too long. He had pinned the location of Raph’s shell-cell to this location and it hadn’t moved for an hour. The whole block was quiet and still, abandoned even by the cutpurses and drunkards that Raph usually managed to hunt down on nights like this.

_ Nights like this... _ Nights that filled even Don’s cynical, factual mind with a certain sense of awe. He landed on the next rooftop and finally had a good look at the silhouette on the other end of the building. The picture was a familiar one, but there was something… off.

Raphael stood in the center of the halo that was the rising full moon, facing the city with his arms folded across his chest. The ends of his bandana rose and fell with the gusts of wind. His shoulders shook almost imperceptibly.

He knew how dangerous and volatile Raph could be when he was like this. He had seen firsthand what happened to those few who tried to reason with him before he was ready to listen. He had watched Master Splinter stitch up those few. Don removed the hand from over his mouth and looked down at the neatly tied bento box in his free hand. He should just go home. Raph would come back when he was good and ready, and Don would heat up his dinner and everything would be fine.

Donatello was a ninja, not a ghost. The wind changed and pulled the sound of his feet and the smell of his skin to his brother’s attention.

Raph turned and the tip of his sai was level with Don’s throat before anything else registered. His eyes were white slits; his voice sounded strained and desperate to hide something. “What do you want?”

There was no way out now. He took each step as one crossing a minefield, looking the explosive dead in the eye. He stopped with ten feet between himself and Raph. He had to keep calm if nothing else. “I… I brought you dinner.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been out here for hours… I thought you might be hungry. There isn’t much, but you know how Mikey and Leo are.”

At this distance, he could see the tension shifting through Raph’s body. His arms lowered from their readied stance and returned to a protective, tightly wound barrier over his vitals. He didn’t think about what he said next. He never did. “You think I can’t handle myself?”

“No… No, that’s not it at all. You’re the most capable out of any of us. I just…” Don struggled for a moment to find a string of words that wouldn’t make things worse. “...I spent a lot of time on this. I want you to have it.”

Raph’s knees were stiff and unresponsive. His feet had never been as quiet as he wanted them to be. He moved slowly and didn’t look at Don’s face. He stuck his sais into his belt and extended a hand. It took him a long minute to work his fingers into something of an accepting-the-box shape. “It ain’t my fault you care.”

Don knew there was something wrong with the quality of his movements, his voice, and his posture. He only had to wonder what it was until his finger’s brushed Raph’s as he handed over the box. His eyes shot up to search Raph’s face. His hands were freezing, and there was little doubt that the rest of him was a similar temperature. He didn’t want to express concern right now, for fear of sounding like a mother hen. The last thing he needed was for Raph to feel patronized. Then again… maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask… “Raph, why are you still out here? You shouldn’t be in the cold like this.”

“Yeah? So?” Raph pulled away and turned to face the moon, the bento box clutched in his hands like it was the last solid thing in the world. Maybe, to him, it was.

Don could feel the chill in his own bones now. He rubbed his arms and determined that feeling patronized was probably not the most pressing thing he had to worry about Raph doing. He had been out here since sunset with no means of retaining heat. “Why don’t you come home?”

It was like watching a steel drum implode. “You don’t--! It’s not…! I  _ can’t _ ! I can’t come home until I’m sure I ain’t gonna hurt anybody!”

That caught his attention. He stepped closer and dared to stand in front of Raph and look at his face. “You aren’t going to hurt anyone. Unless… Do you…?” This was going to come out wrong no matter what he said. “Do you  _ want  _ to hurt someone?”

His eyes were filled with confusion, a question he had been asking for more than a day, a week, a month. The question on his face was one he had asked every minute of every day for as long as he had been old enough to throw a punch. He didn’t ask it out loud. Not then, and not now. He had never put this question into words, but Don could see the toll that had taken on him.

The silence had reached Don’s limit. “Is it one of us? ...is it Leo? Do you want--”

“No! I don’t want to hurt Leo! I don’t want to hurt Mikey either. Or you, or Master Splinter, or April, or Casey… shell, I don’t want to hurt Casey… I want--” Raph stopped and took two shaky breaths. He closed his eyes. His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “...I want to hurt myself.”

That was the answer Don had been most afraid of. He had to know that it didn’t mean what he thought it did. He didn’t want this to happen to Raph. “What?”

“You think I got something wrong with me? Well congratulations, Genius. You’re right! There’s something seriously messed up in here! You think I woulda got half the scratches I get if I hadn’t wanted to get ‘em?”

Don suddenly felt like the stupidest person in the whole city. And this was New York. Raph was too good to be injured so gravely so often. He should have asked earlier. He should have seen the signs. He should have  _ known _ . If anyone was going to get hurt, statistically speaking, it should have been Don. He was the one who was too busy watching other people’s backs to remember to defend himself. Raph, though... Raph was the only one who always had a bandage or a sling or a row of stitches in his arm. It was just a fact of life that no one had thought to question before, but  _ this?  _ This was the reason? Because he  _ wanted  _ to be hurt?

He reached out and let his hand hover over Raph’s arm. It took more effort than he wanted to admit for him to keep his stomach where it belonged. “Do you think you…  _ deserve _ to be hurt? Like… like you’re not good enough or something? Because if this is ab--”

“No. Don, this isn’t about that. It’s just--! It’s not like--! Sometimes--” he grabbed Don’s hand, “-- _ all I can be is angry! _ I don’t want to feel like that anymore! I don’t  _ want _ to get hurt, but it ain’t like I got options. Mikey calms down by riling me up, you calm down by working with your gadgets, Leo’s always calm, and I can’t find nothing to snap me out of it except for letting it bleed its way outa me!”

It wasn’t what he had thought. It was worse. Don didn’t want to say it, but he had no idea how to fix this. It was killing Raph and it was killing Don to watch it. The other thing killing Don was his hand: trapped in Raph’s, the bones in his palm crackling against each other, all feeling in his fingers long gone. He looked up at his face and took a risk. “Raph, you’re hurting me!”

He stopped. He let go of Don and let him pull his hand away. Every ounce of tension in the air and Raph’s body stayed right where it was.

Don examined his hand and waited for a long moment before he looked back up. When he did, Raph was exactly where he had left him. His arms were tight and his face held the only emotion that ever seemed to last.

“Listen… I can help you, but first, you have to let me. You have to want help.”

Even the stupidest person in the whole city could see that he wanted help. His eyes told stories of needing help that he hadn’t been offered until this moment.

“Okay, let’s start with the easy stuff. Breathe.”

He was shaking. The muscles in his neck and arms were wound like springs, ready to snap under the stress. His eyes were wide and unfocused. The box in his hands complained about the pressure. His chest moved like the waves in a storm-torn ocean, crashing into ships and cliffs at every turn. He was breathing, and he was doing his best to breathe the way Donnie was asking him to.

Donatello swallowed a scream and a sob. He kept his eyes on Raph’s face and his shoulders relaxed. The energy in the air was infectious. He wanted to kill whatever was making Raph feel like this.

Raphael’s body started to accept the change in pressure, but the box hadn’t been notified. The plastic cracked and splintered into pieces within the fabric. His arms tensed again and he froze. 

It hurt to watch. Donatello could see every thought that ran through his brother’s head as he processed the layers of what he had done.

He had broken something because of his anger. He had broken something Donatello had given him. Something Donatello had put time and energy into making for him. Something Donatello had hunted him down to give him. His wide eyes closed and his jaw tightened. It wasn’t just anything Donatello had made for him. It was the one thing he had wanted. It was his favorite.

Before Raphael could do something rash, Donatello reached out and put a hand over his wrist. “Please, Raph… please don’t-” _ Please don’t cry. Please don’t blame yourself. Please don’t think this defines you. _

Donatello’s hesitation cost him the fight. His cheek stung before he knew Raphael had moved. He reached up to check for bleeding, but Raph was already yelling again.

“The shell were you  _ thinking? _ Why would you waste your time making something you  _ know  _ I’m just going to ruin? You’re so  _ stupid _ sometimes! You know a lot about machines, but you have a shell of a lot to learn about me. When are you gonna get that you can’t trust me?”

Don had heard enough. He grabbed Raph by the jaw and forced him to look him in the eye. He held him there as gently as he possibly could and waited for a moment, just to see what would happen.

As if by magic, Raphael matched his breaths to Donatello’s. His skin was still cold. His eyes were still wild. A spark of fear shone from deep in his soul and he looked like a lost child.

“Listen to me. I can trust you. You’re a good person.” He couldn’t handle the current issue right now. He changed the subject. “If you ever try to hurt Leo or Mikey or April or Casey in anger, I will do everything in my power to stop you. I won’t let you become something you don’t want to be.”

A rare drop of a third emotion slid down Raphael’s cheek and his voice dropped to a whisper. “But about you? Promise me you’re strong enough to fight me. Promise me I can’t kill you.”

Donatello ran his thumb over Raphael’s lips and cheek, gathering the single tear and burying it in the past. “I swear that I am strong enough and smart enough to fight you and win. The day I feel unsafe around you will be the day the Earth stops turning.”

Raphael closed his eyes and leaned into Donatello’s hand. “Good. I’m… I’m really sorry. For everything. For scaring you like this, for keeping all this a secret, for hurting you, for ruining your hard work… I don’t deserve you.”

“Do you want to go home now?”

“Yeah… that sounds real nice.”

* * *

A few weeks later, the lair was quiet. Leonardo and Michelangelo were in bed. Donatello could read in peace knowing that everyone was safe.

Raphael sat on that same rooftop with a thermos of hot beef broth, a bento box of rice and vegetables, and a heated blanket.

Donatello was too good for him.

When he had first given Raph the blanket, Raph had asked what he would do without Don.

The answer still echoed through his head.

_ “Freeze, starve, and break stuff.” _


End file.
